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Publisher: Marvel/Icon
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
Cover: Steve McNiven

Minor Spoilers!

“Chapter One”: How do you top your last project that flew off the shelves, is now a major motion picture, and a soon-to-be next gen video game? You come back with something just as visceral and new that delivers a dragon punch to the nuts of your previous work, while making it known on the cover that’s what you’re attempting to do!

Nemesis is the creation of Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, who just so happens to be the ONLY super-criminal on the planet, and has a thing for killing high profile police officers all over the world. So after toppling a hotel and introducing one of Tokyo’s finest to the front of a bullet train, he sets his sights on Washington D.C. and Police Chief Morrow. So how does Nemesis get Morrow’s attention, you might ask? Well, being the gentleman that he is, Nemesis sends a card stating the exact time and place of the Police Chief’s impending death; and then to add a little spice to the event, Nemesis goes after one of the most high profile individuals in the country just to show how serious he really is.

There was really no excuse for me not to at least try this title out; I mean it’s Millar and McNiven, the guys who brought us Marvel’s Civil War and Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and with Millar still riding high on Kick-Ass, picking this up was just a no brainer. The series is set up nicely in this issue, and it gets straight to the point pretty quickly. From the intro to the cliffhanger ending I had a good time with this issue. It was a pretty fast read, so I went back a couple of times to see if I had missed anything, and tried to pick the story apart for myself. This didn’t detract from the overall story we were given, because whatever it might have lacked in dialogue, McNiven made up for with visual eye candy for the reader. Now, I will say that I’ve seen better from him when I compare it to the Old Man Logan books and Civil War, but he is still delivering some quality work in this series so far.

The concept of the story is pretty straightforward and simple, and this is even stated by Millar himself at the end of the book. Though he compares their creation with another comic character, but with a twist, I also had thoughts of the Die Hard movies after reading this. I’m trying not to reveal too much here, but I think it has to do with the level of action in those films and what happens in this first issue. And speaking of movies, apparently there is talk of a Nemesis movie that has directors “fighting” over the opportunity to take it on. It’s pretty quick with this being the only issue out so far, and the public (well at least the comic community) hasn’t had the final say yet as to whether the story is a flop or not, but all of us know that hasn’t stopped Hollywood before.

Now some people might automatically compare this with Kick-Ass, and I’m not sure if that would be fair. Only in the sense that with Kick-Ass, the concept hit on the inner geek in all of us that have been collecting comics, and is a little more relatable than this. Nemesis is a straight up action movie on paper, but if you’re able to identify with Nemesis more, then hopefully you get that much needed therapy real soon. I will say though, if you’re looking for some thought provoking existential piece, grab some other book on the shelf, then turn around and pick up Nemesis for an adrenalin ride with a pissed off assassin with an axe to grind, and have some fun!

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